TORONTO, Ontario -- This game will not be commemorated in the Hockey Hall of Fame. And if it is, well, just keep it hidden somewhere in the back.

Devils’ legend Martin Brodeur dropped the ceremonial puck on the 21st annual Hall of Fame Game and the goalie who idolized him growing up turned in a performance the Hall-of-Famer might approve of, even if the score ended up somewhat lopsided. But aside from Keith Kinkaid's 25 saves, the Devils appeared overmatched and overwhelmed at times in a 6-1 loss to the Toronto Maple Leafs on Friday at Scotiabank Arena.

"I thought Keith was really good early in the game, we had some chances really early, but we got down 1-0," coach John Hynes said. "In the second, I thought we had some real strong pushes and didn’t get rewarded for them and they capitalized on some chances they had."

Give credit where it’s due, the Devils didn’t roll over and stop skating after the Leafs went up 3-0 in the second period, as they had in recent games. In fact, they outshot the Leafs 32-17 over the second two periods.

But they gave up too many odd-man rushes, they turned the puck over in their own and even when they did get sustained offensive pressure, Frederik Andersen (38 saves) didn’t let them do any damage.

"When you look at this game, I thought there were points in the game where we had opportunities to score and we didn’t," Hynes said. "We were pushing, pushing, pushing and then we come down and they wind up scoring a goal at a certain point."

The Devils did some good things in the third period, but the mountain was ultimately too steep to climb and things fell apart midway through the period. Ben Lovejoy fanned on a puck and Tyler Ennis took it behind the net, deked Stefan Noesen and snapped one over Kinkaid to give Toronto a 6-1 lead.

"We created a lot of chances, but it seemed like a mistake here or there ended up in the back of our net," Devils' captain Andy Greene said. "And that’s the way it is."

Nikita Zaitsev appeared to score later in the third but it was waved off when Frederik Gauthier clipped Miles Wood with a high stick.

Toronto Maple Leafs goaltender Frederik Andersen (31) and New Jersey Devils left wing Taylor Hall (9) look for the puck during the second period of an NHL hockey game Friday, Nov. 9, 2018, in Toronto.(Photo: Frank Gunn, AP)

The wheels came off when the Leafs scored twice in a span of less than two minutes to go up 5-1 in the second. This came after Travis Zajac scored at the 7:23 mark of the second to put the Devils on the board and give them a fighting chance.

But Andreas Johnsson scored off the rush at 15:44, and at 17:27 Morgan Reilly intercepted an errant clearing attempt at the blue line and rocketed it through traffic so quickly that Kinkaid didn’t even see it coming.

John Tavares, a player the Devils are all too familiar with, opened the scoring in the first period when he potted a low feed from Ron Hainsey. Nazem Kadri scored 1:52 into play to make it 2-0 and Hainsey, Lindholm and Connor Brown went tic-tac-toe just over five minutes into the period to give Toronto a 3-0 advantage.

The Devils are now 6-7-1 and have lost five of their last seven. That record-tying start they had in October has been erased. It doesn’t matter what was done a month ago, the only thing that matters is how they move forward. They thought they were out of the slump five days ago after a resounding win in Pittsburgh but it’s now become clear that the Devils aren’t out of the woods just yet.

"There’s no feeling sorry for ourselves in here," Greene said. "This is a relentless league. No one is going to do you any favors. We’ve got to find a way to get through it, push and keep going here. We have to create our own chances and our own luck."

Notes

The Devils made two transactions to be able to activate Jesper Bratt and Noesen prior to the game. Goalie Eddie Lack cleared waivers and was assigned to Binghamton of the American Hockey League, where he had been for two weeks already on a conditioning assignment. Also, the Devils reassigned Kurtis Gabriel to Binghamton and activated Noesen. … The Devils scratched Drew Stafford, Egor Yakovlev and Jean-Sebastien Dea for the first time this season.